Melvin B. Tolson
Melvin Beaunorus Tolson (February 6, 1898 - August 29, 1966) was a modernist African-American poet, educator, columnist, and politician. Life Overview Tolson's work concentrated on the experience of African Americans and includes several long historical poems. His work was influenced by his study of the Harlem Renaissance, although he spent nearly all of his career in Texas and Oklahoma. Youth and education Tolson was born in Moberly, Missouri, 1 of 4 children of Rev. Alonzo Tolson, a Methodist minister, and Lera (Hurt), a seamstress of African-Creek ancestry.Dr. Eric Anthony Joseph, "The Great Debater, Melvin B. Tolson", The Gazette, Langston University, 6 Feb 2008, accessed 13 Jan 2009 Alonzo Tolson was also of mixed race, the son of an enslaved woman and her white master. He served at various churches in the Missouri and Iowa area until settling longer in Kansas City. Rev. Tolson studied throughout his life to add to the limited education he had first received, even taking Latin, Greek and Hebrew by correspondence courses. Both parents emphasized education for their children. Melvin Tolson graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City in 1919. He enrolled at Fisk University but transferred to Lincoln University, Pennsylvania the next year for financial reasons. Tolson graduated with honors in 1924. He became a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Marriage and family In 1922, Melvin Tolson married Ruth Southall of Charlottesville, Virginia, whom he had met as a student at Lincoln University. Their oldest child was Melvin Beaunorus Tolson, Jr., who, as an adult, became a professor at the University of Oklahoma.Melvin B. Tolson, Jr., "On Preparing to Write the Modernist Ode", 1990, Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, accessed 13 January 2009 He was followed by Arthur Lincoln, who as an adult became a professor at Southern University; Wiley Wilson; and Ruth Marie Tolson. All children were born by 1928.Dr. Eric Anthony Joseph, "The Great Debater, Melvin B. Tolson", The Gazetter, Langston University, 6 February 2008, accessed 13 January 2009 Career In 1930-1931 Tolson took a leave of absence from teaching to study for a Master's degree at Columbia University. His thesis project, "The Harlem Group of Negro Writers", was based on his extensive interviews with members of the Harlem Renaissance."Melvin B. Tolson", Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, accessed 13 Jan 2009 His poetry was strongly influenced by his time in New York. He completed his work and was awarded the master's degree in 1940. After graduation, Tolson and his wife moved to Marshall, Texas, where he taught speech and English at Wiley College (1924-1947). The small, historically black Methodist Episcopal college had a high reputation among blacks in the South and Tolson became one of its stars.Melvin B. Tolson, Jr., "The Poetry of Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966)", World Literature Today, Vol. 64, 1990, accessed 13 Jan 2009 In addition to teaching English, Tolson used his high energies in several directions at Wiley. He built an award-winning debate team, the Wiley Forensic Society. During their tour in 1935, they broke through the color barrier and competed against the University of Southern California, which they defeated."Invisibility was the worst result of Jim Crow's South" There he also co-founded the black intercollegiate Southern Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts, and directed the theater club. In addition, he coached the junior varsity football team. Tolson mentored students such as James L. Farmer, Jr. and Heman Sweatt, who later became civil rights activists. He encouraged his students not only to be well-rounded people but also to stand up for their rights. This was a controversial position in the segregated U.S. South of the early and mid-20th century. In 1947 Tolson began teaching at Langston University, a historically black college in Langston, Oklahoma, where he worked for the next 17 years. He was a dramatist and director of the Dust Bowl Theater at the university. One of his students at Langston was Nathan Hare, the black studies pioneer who became the founding publisher of the journal The Black Scholar. Tolson entered local politics and served 3 terms as mayor of Langston from 1954 to 1960.Melvin B. Tolson biography, "Melvin B. Tolson 1898-1966: Plain Talk and Poetic Prophesy", Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, accessed 13 Jan 2009 In 1947, Tolson was accused of reportedly having been active in the late 1930s of organizing farm laborers and tenant farmers (though the nature of his activities is unclear) and of having radical leftist associations.Marshall News Messenger. The film, The Great Debaters, portrays him as having been a possible Communist. In the film, Tolson's arrest for union organizing galvanizes the town of Marshall, Texas's black community. In 1953 he completed a major epic poem in honor of Liberia's centennial, the Libretto for the Republic of Liberia. Tolson was a man of impressive intellect who created poetry that was “funny, witty, humoristic, slapstick, rude, cruel, bitter, and hilarious,” as reviewer Karl Shapiro described the Harlem Gallery. The poet Langston Hughes described him as “no highbrow. Students revere him and love him. Kids from the cotton fields like him. Cow punchers understand him ... He’s a great talker.” In 1965, Tolson was appointed to a 2-year term as Avalon Poet at Tuskegee Institute. He died after cancer surgery in Dallas, Texas, on August 29, 1966. He was buried in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Writing From 1930 on, Tolson began writing poetry. He also wrote 2 plays by 1937, although he did not continue to work in this genre. In 1941, he published his poem "Dark Symphony" in Atlantic Monthly. Some critics believe it is his greatest work, in which he compared and contrasted African-American and European-American history. In 1944 Tolson published his debut poetry collection Rendezvous with America, which includes Dark Symphony. He was especially interested in historic events which had fallen into obscurity. In the late 1940s, after he left his teaching position at Wiley, the'' Washington Tribune'' hired Tolson to write a weekly column, which he called Cabbage and Caviar. Tolson's Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (1953), another major work, is in the form of an epic poem in an eight-part, rhapsodic sequence. It is considered a major modernist work. Tolson's final work to appear in his lifetime, the long poem Harlem Gallery, was published in 1965. The poem consists of several sections, each beginning with a letter of the Greek alphabet. The poem concentrates on African-American life. A striking change from his earliest works, it was composed in a jazz style with quick changes and intellectually dense, rich allusions. In 1979 a collection of Tolson's poetry was published posthumously, titled A Gallery of Harlem Portraits. These were poems written during his year in New York. They represented a mixture of various styles, including short narratives in free verse. This collection was influenced by the loose form of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. An urban, racially diverse and culturally rich community is presented in A Gallery of Harlem Portraits. With increasing interest in Tolson and his literary period, in 1999 the University of Virginia published a collection of his poetry entitled Harlem Gallery, and other poems of Melvin B. Tolson, edited by Raymond Nelson. Recognition In 1947 Liberia named Tolson its poet laureate. Awards *Fellowship to Columbia University, 1930-1931 * 1954, appointed permanent fellow in poetry and drama at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.Dr. Eric Johnson, "Melvin B. Tolson: The Great Debater, Life after Langston", The Gazette, Langston University, 13 Feb 2008, accessed 13 Jan 2009 * 1964, elected to the New York Herald Tribune book-review board, and the District of Columbia presented him with a citation and Award for Cultural Achievement in the Fine Arts. * 1964, grant from the National Institute * 1966, annual poetry award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters"Melvin B. Tolson", Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 13 Jan 2009 * 1970, Langston University founded the Melvin B. Tolson Black Heritage Center in his honor, to collect material of Africans, African Americans, and the African diaspora. * 2004, inducted posthumously into Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame. In popular culture Tolson is a central character in the movie The Great Debaters (2007), directed by and starring Denzel Washington in the role of Tolson. Oprah Winfrey produced the film, based on Wiley College's debate with University of Southern California (USC). (In the movie, the team debates Harvard, not USC). Publications Poetry *''Rendezvous with America''. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1944. *(Under name M. B. Tolson) Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (as "M.B. Tolson"; preface by Allen Tate). New York: Twayne, 1953; London & New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1970. *''Harlem Gallery, Book One: The curator'' (as "M.B. Tolson"; introduction by Karl Shapiro. New York: Twayne, 1965. *"The Sea-turtle and the Shark" (broadside). Detroit, MI: Broadside Press, 1966. *''A Gallery of Harlem Portraits'' (edited by Robert M. Farnsworth). Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1979. *''Harlem Gallery, and other poems'' (edited by Raymond Nelson). Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1999. Non-fiction *''Caviar and Cabbage: Selected columns by Melvin B. Tolson from the 'Washington Tribune', 1937-1944'' (edited by Robert M. Farnsworth). Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1982. *''The Harlem Group of Negro Writers'' (edited by Edward J. Mullen). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Melvin B. Tolson, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Mar. 28, 2015. Audio / video *''M.B. Tolson''. Kansas City, MO: University of Missouri, 1980. Play productions *(Writer and director) The Fire in the Flint (adapted from Walter White's novel of the same title), 1st produced in Oklahoma City, OK, at National Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, June 28, 1952.Melvin B. Tolson 1898-1966, Poetry Foundation. Web, Dec. 19, 2012. See also *African-American poets *List of U.S. poets References * * Fonds *Tolson's papers are housed at the Library of Congress Notes External links ;Poems *"The Sea-turtle and the Shark" *Melvin B. Tolson 1898-1966 at the Poetry Foundation *The Poetry of Melvin B. Thompson (3 poems) ;Audio / video *Melvin B. Tolson at YouTube ;About *Melvin B. Tolson at the African-American Experience *Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966) at Modern American Poetry. *Melvin B. Tolson, at the International Movie Database *[http://www.flashpointmag.com/tolson.htm Review of Harlem Gallery, and other poems] Category:1898 births Category:1966 deaths Category:People from Randolph County, Missouri Category:People from the Kansas City metropolitan area Category:Fisk University alumni Category:Langston University Category:Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) alumni Category:People from Marshall, Texas Category:Mayors of places in Oklahoma Category:American poets Category:African American poets Category:African American politicians Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Muscogee people Category:Wiley College faculty Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Modernist poets Category:American modernist poets